Overexpression of the phytochrome B gene from Arabidopsis thaliana increases plant growth and yield of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum)

The phytochrome B (PHYB) gene of Arabidopsis thaliana was introduced into cotton through Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Integration and expression of PHYB gene in cotton plants were confirmed by molecular evidence. Messenger RNA (mRNA) expression in one of the transgenic lines, QCC11, was much higher than those of control and other transgenic lines. Transgenic cotton plants showed more than a two-fold increase in photosynthetic rate and more than a four-fold increase in transpiration rate and stomatal conductance. The increase in photosynthetic rate led to a 46% increase in relative growth rate and an 18% increase in net assimilation rate. Data recorded up to two generations, both in the greenhouse and in the field, revealed that overexpression of Arabidopsis thaliana PHYB gene in transgenic cotton plants resulted in an increase in the production of cotton by improving the cotton plant growth, with 35% more yield. Moreover, the presence of the Arabidopsis thaliana PHYB gene caused pleiotropic effects like semi-dwarfism, decrease in apical dominance, and increase in boll size.     

Morality and science teaching: expanding the idea of giving zakah

Cultural Studies of Science Education - In this forum, I explore how science teaching and learning as a moral act needs to be based in the context of a local community. I agree with Alaina...     

The media–terrorism symbiosis: a case study of Mumbai attacks, 2008

There has been a long-standing debate among scholars, policy-makers, politicians and journalists about the relationship between terrorism and the news media for whom terrorism is usually a newsworthy story. A primary focus of the debate is to investigate the media–terrorism symbiotic relationship. This paper explores this relationship through a qualitative, thematic analysis of how British TV news channels covered a major terrorist incident after the 9/11 – Mumbai attacks 2008. It examines the interpretive theme of ‘awe, terror and chaos’, and how it is selected, prioritized and developed in the presentation of the events which spread over a period of more than 72 hours. Additionally, it considers the kind of political and organizational factors that might shape or modify the editorial decision-making processes and ideological assumptions that may lie behind such coverage. Ultimately, the study maintains that British TV news outlets play an important role in mediating terrorist messages and focus primarily on images of terror and violence during the coverage of Mumbai attacks. While there are key differences between public and commercial TV news in the style and presentation of coverage, with the former being more careful in approach, the news channels concentrate on televising death and injury and the propagation of chaos and confusion in the affected city.     

Reading sources and academic freedom as determinants of trends in English language teacher research in Egypt: an interview-based study

Little attention has been given to investigating the experiences of teacher researchers while undertaking their studies. In an attempt to explore what accounts for the stereotyped and imitative trends in the studies conducted by English language teachers in Egypt, the present study has explored how they select research topics and the factors influencing their research orientations and processes. The study used semi-structured interviews with 25 Egyptian teachers who were doing MA and Ph.D. studies in TESOL. It was found that they view good language teaching research as either testing the effectiveness of instructional techniques or evaluating textbooks, though most of them opt for experimental research due to its practical nature. The study also revealed that reading sources and academic freedom are the two main determinants of research trends in this context. Apart from the association found between the teacher researchers’ perceived academic freedom and the type of literature they read, the following three other factors also accounted for the relative variance in such freedom: (a) the stage undertaken in the research, (b) the number of supervisors available or assigned and (c) the research degree registered for. The article concludes with discussing the implications of these results.     

魅力巴基斯坦

巴基斯坦的自然风光十分壮美,地形地势丰富多样。这里有皑皑白雪覆盖的群山,有激流缓滩、广袤的森林、一望无垠的沙漠和众多郁郁葱葱的山谷。在巴基斯坦长达900公里的海岸线上,海水清澈见底,沙滩十分干净,岸边阳光明媚、天蓝云淡,是令人向往的旅游胜地。巴基斯坦还有辉煌的艺术品和建筑物、古老的珍宝、迷人的文化、传统的节日、引以自豪的宫殿、阔绰的皇家公园,     

Textual keyword extraction and summarization: State-of-the-art

With the advent of Web 2.0, there exist many online platforms that results in massive textual data production such as social networks, online blogs, magazines etc. This textual data carries information that can be used for betterment of humanity. Hence, there is a dire need to extract potential information out of it. This study aims to present an overview of approaches that can be applied to extract and later present these valuable information nuggets residing within text in brief, clear and concise way. In this regard, two major tasks of automatic keyword extraction and text summarization are being reviewed. To compile the literature, scientific articles were collected using major digital computing research repositories. In the light of acquired literature, survey study covers early approaches up to all the way till recent advancements using machine learning solutions. Survey findings conclude that annotated benchmark datasets for various textual data-generators such as twitter and social forms are not available. This scarcity of dataset has resulted into relatively less progress in many domains. Also, applications of deep learning techniques for the task of automatic keyword extraction are relatively unaddressed. Hence, impact of various deep architectures stands as an open research direction. For text summarization task, deep learning techniques are applied after advent of word vectors, and are currently governing state-of-the-art for abstractive summarization. Currently, one of the major challenges in these tasks is semantic aware evaluation of generated results.     

The politics of mourning in Cyprus and Israel: educational implications

This paper suggests the need for a critical analysis of the nationalization of mourning and its educational implications, especially in conflict‐ridden areas. Our thoughts are grounded in a comparative study on mourning that has been conducted as part of our long‐standing ethnographic research in schools in Cyprus and Israel during the last 10 years. Through this study on mourning, we highlight two ideas. First, we want to show how a comparison of our studies in Cyprus and Israel highlights the difficulties for alternative interpretations to be translated into educational policies and teacher practices in the absence of changes in political structures. Second, we want to show that despite the forces that nationalize mourning, there are educational openings for alternative interpretations about mourning and the encouragement of reconciliation pedagogies. To this end, the education literature on teaching controversial issues and examples of pedagogies for reconciliation might be relevant to provide concrete ideas for education theory, policy and practice on issues of mourning.     

The "geography" of child maltreatment in Israel: Findings from a national data set of cases reported to the social services

OBJECTIVES: This article examines the "geography" of reported cases of child maltreatment in Israel by determining its frequency and rates according to nationality, area of residence, and size and type of locality. METHOD: The study collected data at the local level in Israel based on reports to social services of cases of child maltreatment during 2000; locality is the unit of analysis. RESULTS: The rate of reported cases of child maltreatment was 17.8 per 1,000 children in Israel in 2000. The rates varied, however, among different localities. They were lower in Arab localities (9 per 1,000 children) than in the Jewish ones (20 per 1,000), higher in large cities and other socioeconomic affluent localities (19 per 1,000), and varied according to the geographic area. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates considerable variation in rates of reported cases of child maltreatment by locality and by population makeup. Thus, to fulfill the Israeli legislation of mandatory reporting of any reasonable suspicion of child maltreatment, the state should better develop policies and services that encourage reporting of child maltreatment among the Arab and ultraorthodox populations and in smaller or socioeconomic disadvantaged localities. Furthermore, the social services must build a bridge to the minority populations in Israel, developing their trust in these services and increasing their propensity to use them.     

ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool Children's Version (ICAST-C): Instrument development and multi-national pilot testing

ObjectiveTo develop a child victimization survey among a diverse group of child protection experts and examine the performance of the instrument through a set of international pilot studies.MethodsThe initial draft of the instrument was developed after input from scientists and practitioners representing 40 countries. Volunteers from the larger group of scientists participating in the Delphi review of the ICAST P and R reviewed the ICAST C by email in 2 rounds resulting in a final instrument. The ICAST C was then translated and back translated into six languages and field tested in four countries using a convenience sample of 571 children 12–17 years of age selected from schools and classrooms to which the investigators had easy access.ResultsThe final ICAST C Home has 38 items and the ICAST C Institution has 44 items. These items serve as screeners and positive endorsements are followed by queries for frequency and perpetrator. Half of respondents were boys (49%). Endorsement for various forms of victimization ranged from 0 to 51%. Many children report violence exposure (51%), physical victimization (55%), psychological victimization (66%), sexual victimization (18%), and neglect in their homes (37%) in the last year. High rates of physical victimization (57%), psychological victimization (59%), and sexual victimization (22%) were also reported in schools in the last year. Internal consistency was moderate to high (alpha between .685 and .855) and missing data low (less than 1.5% for all but one item).ConclusionsIn pilot testing, the ICAST C identifies high rates of child victimization in all domains. Rates of missing data are low, and internal consistency is moderate to high. Pilot testing demonstrated the feasibility of using child self-report as one strategy to assess child victimization.Practice implicationsThe ICAST C is a multi-national, multi-lingual, consensus-based survey instrument. It is available in six languages for international research to estimate child victimization. Assessing the prevalence of child victimization is critical in understanding the scope of the problem, setting national and local priorities, and garnering support for program and policy development aimed at child protection.